S30V, S45VN or S90V. Is one of these better?

[Brant]

Try to decide my next move, these are my choices.

[Ferruginous]

I like S30V for a working knife, I find it to hold a useable edge for a very long time. Always long enough to get home and sharpen it. I cut up an entire house worth of carpet with an S30V Military, it stayed "sharp enough" all day. Friend was using a 154CM knife and it went dull quickly, to the point he had to saw at the carpet to cut it. My Military sailed through the material all day. I sharpen my S30V knives until they are 'sharp enough' then give up - I've never had luck getting a super refined edge with anyones' mass produced S30V, although I had a custom in S30V that was noticeably better.

My experience with S90V is limited. It was difficult to sharpen and, like S30V, I wasn't able to get a great edge.

For an EDC knife I prefer S45VN. It takes a finer edge easily and is a joy to sharpen.

If you have to cut carpet all day get the S30V, otherwise go with S45VN.

I'd love for those who voted for S30V to share if they've ever used S45VN.

[Manifestgtr]

The difference between 30 and 45 are gonna be somewhat minimal…especially in real world use.

S90V is what you buy if you want ultimate edge retention in a stainless steel. It’s basically at the top of the heap. If you’re not gonna be too rough on the knife, you’re good with sharpening or you know someone who is, S90V is a good way to go. Otherwise, 30 and 45 are perfectly sensible options. Balanced and readily available

[Skar]

I vote for s30, yes I’ve used s45vn.
Ime s30 has better edge stability and easy to sharpen whereas s45 tends to roll.

[Sharp Guy]

As Sal's said....all good just different

I have some of each and like it all. I have a lot of S30V (and S35VN) and actually really like it. I guess I'm a boring knife guy haha

[hobbyist]

Haven’t tried s45vn. The thing I like about s30v is that it stays sharp enough for a while, but then I can sharpen it on the brown stones on the sharp maker.

Using diamonds on the KME is always an hour long ordeal (which I suffer for my k390), and I’m not good enough to free hand. So I like where s30v sits.

[Steeltoez83]

Which model are you looking at?

[Sharp24/7]

I like S30V for a working knife, I find it to hold a useable edge for a very long time. Always long enough to get home and sharpen it. I cut up an entire house worth of carpet with an S30V Military, it stayed "sharp enough" all day. Friend was using a 154CM knife and it went dull quickly, to the point he had to saw at the carpet to cut it. My Military sailed through the material all day. I sharpen my S30V knives until they are 'sharp enough' then give up - I've never had luck getting a super refined edge with anyones' mass produced S30V, although I had a custom in S30V that was noticeably better.

My experience with S90V is limited. It was difficult to sharpen and, like S30V, I wasn't able to get a great edge.

For an EDC knife I prefer S45VN. It takes a finer edge easily and is a joy to sharpen.

If you have to cut carpet all day get the S30V, otherwise go with S45VN.

I'd love for those who voted for S30V to share if they've ever used S45VN.

I’ve used and sharpened both S30V and S45VN. And I’m with you, the S45 sharpens beautifully. I took a knife that was reflecting light at several points along the edge and five passes per side on the fine side of double stuff 2 brought it right back.

[James Y]

I have knives in S30V and one in S45VN; none in S90V.

I like both S30V and S45VN, but admittedly, I haven't used my S45 one enough to say how it resharpens. I will say I've never had any problem at all resharpening S30V (Military, PM2, Para 3, etc.) on my Sharpmaker.

I like 'em both.

Jim

[Bolster]

"Better"? Different.

[vivi]

no. they're all a trade off, e.g. s90v holds an edge longer than s30V but has worse sharpening response and higher price.

all three are good.

[Naperville]

As has been said, the steel you choose will depend on what you plan to do with the knife. And the differences between any of them will be very small, they are all pretty good steels.

I chose S90V for the small difference that may be noticeable. I use my knives the way most people use a firearm, only for self defense. If I get 5% better edge retention that's fine. Buy Once; Cry Once.

The steels that you mentioned are all good steels.

[kennethsime]

S45VN will be the best balanced of the three. I have a Sebenza in S45VN and it’s a great every day steel. Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

S30V is fine. I like to sharpen it with diamonds for best results.

Personally, I’ve been really enjoying how long my S90V PM2 has stayed sharp on its factory edge - going on almost a year now with fairly regular carry. I may have stropped it a few times, but nothing beyond that.

[Doc Dan]

I like S30V and S90V. However, I voted S30V because of one reason: ease of sharpening. S30V was developed specifically for knives and is well balanced.

I have no direct experience with S45VN.

[standy99]

I am more than happy with S30V but have been using the S45VN Mule a bit for the last 12 months. (as it’s the first one of my several Mules on the magnetic strip in the kitchen.)
So I have found it holds an edge better than S30V and sharpens just as easy, if not better.

More than happy with S45VN or S30V as sharpening is easy.


Have sharpened many a S90V knife for friends (mostly long thin fillet knives) and find it a great fillet knife material. But it is a harder steel to sharpen, I sharpen freehand being a ex-butcher. I also steel a knife I use a lot and have noticed S90V doesn’t steel as well as a higher hardness carbon steel knife.
Would I buy a pocket knife in S90V -Probably not. But would buy a 6 inch fillet knife

[Traditional.Sharpening]

No steel is 'better' until you define a large enough picture of how and what the knife will be cutting and what sort of geometry the edge will have. The largest difference between those steels you are likely to be able to perceive with any sort of precision (not just seeing random effects of the actual materials you are cutting and the slop in cutting technique) would be in sharpening and corrosion resistance.

S90V will simply be much harder to grind than the others and S45VN would likely be the easiest as it has the least amount of Vanadium. Anybody who attempts to convince you that they are seeing massive or mayb even significant differences between those is likely biased as well.... because S90V is 45 or 60 times better than S45VN or S30V right? If you are met with these types of claims the simplest response would be... 'have you done any cutting tests which were blinded'?

As in, did the person doing the cutting know what knife they were using? If the answer is yes, then the likelihood of bias is strong. If the answer is no, then the claims may be more reliable if carried across a very large range of cutting data across various materials (clean, dirty, abrasive, soft, etc).

[dlum1]

If going stainless, I will almost always choose s90v over the other two -- but I use diamond sharpening stones. The stainless properties of s90v and s30v are roughly the same, but the s90v holds a working edge noticeably longer. I prefer s45vn to s30v, but only because s45vn is significantly more stainless than s30v. Edge retention between s30v and s45vn seems similar, but I've had s30v rust in my pocket while s45vn has proven to be m390-level stainless. At the end of the day though, if I need something extremely stainless, I usually grab something with 20cv/m390 since I already have it. That being said, I'm happy to see s45vn being used in regular production. For extreme cases such as heading into saltwater, I'll bring a pacific salt.
To summarize:
stainless: LC200N/H1 > S45VN ~ 20CV/M390 >> S90V ~ S30V
edge retention: S90V >> 20CV/M390 ~ S45VN ~ S30V > LC200N

[vilePossum]

For me personally S90V is way ahead of the other two. But I only use it in small and thin slicing folders, one being an opinel mod.

[Erich]

They are all brittle, so that is a moot point. Depending on the abrasive S90V can be harder to grind but this can be completely eliminated with high end abrasives like a ceramic waterstone or some good diamond like Atoma, or cbn. Even high quality traditional waterstones can make quick work of S90V. You will see a slow down in sharpening when using super fine traditional waterstones with a hard bonding, and you want a hard bond, or India stones, or fine ceramics.

I would take S90V.

[dsvirsky]

They are all brittle, so that is a moot point.

Please define brittle and tell us about your personal experience with S30V. I own a number of knives, fixed and folding, in S30V from Spyderco, Strider, and White River Knives, as well as from several custom knife makers and have used those knives for close on 20 years. None of them have shown any tendency to chip in normal use, except maybe the factory edge on my Nilakka, which did develop several easily fixed micro chips.